


Pulling Strings

by ScarlettJuniper



Category: Naruto
Genre: Biting, F/M, Haruno Sakura is INTO danger, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 05:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19078816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettJuniper/pseuds/ScarlettJuniper
Summary: Sometimes the only cure for poison is more.





	Pulling Strings

Sakura never could relax on missions that took her outside of Konoha’s walls. Even at home, she hadn’t been sleeping well since Sasuke had left the hidden village in the leaf, since Naruto had nearly died trying to bring him back. Even in the peaceful times of the last two years, she couldn’t get her body to fully relax against the constant stress that somewhere, Sasuke was out there cutting a swathe of carnage to get his revenge.

But tonight she was unusually restless. It was impossible to pull the poison out of a patient without taking on a little of it yourself. Normally, she could banish the side effects of most venoms, but the toxins she had pulled out of Kankuro’s body had been different. Her limbs were stiff and heavy, as though her movement wasn’t fully under her control. 

If they had been even an hour later Kankuro would be dead. Instead, his recovery would be slow and painful; if a full recovery was possible at all.   
Sakura knew better than to speak too freely of the possible complications to vicious Shinobi of the sand. She could see what they had done to Gaara in their pursuit of power. Although Kankuro was the Kazekage’s brother, she wasn’t sure it was safe to say that Kankuro may never perform as a full Chuunin of the sand should. She wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be…disposed of in Gaara’s absence. 

She also knew better than to say anything of her symptoms here, lest she be branded a burden. She could sense the desperation in Naruto, who had made this mission so personal. If he thought she would hold the mission back, he would ask her to stay behind. 

And she couldn’t. 

Someone truly monstrous had crafted that poison. In her training with Tsunade over the last two years, Sakura had seen more violence than she had ever thought possible. Even a lifetime of training to become a Shinobi hadn’t prepared her for the slaughter she had seen. But the poison coursing through Kankuro’s veins-the poison that now coursed through her veins…. It promised a death filled with agony for whoever was struck down with it. 

The moments immediately after healing Kankuro had been filled with white-hot pain, but Sakura hadn’t stopped to rest after he was healed. She made as much more of the antidote as she could with the remaining Tomoshiri-sou before she rested. Even so, her efforts only produced three extra vials of the stuff. As she thought of the dark liquid she had pulled out of Kankuro’s prone body, she knew that it wouldn’t be enough. 

Naruto needed her on this mission. Just as he had needed her to retrieve Sasuke. She would not be too weak to do what was necessary.   
Sakura relaxed into the cot, desperate for the sleep to come. Sleep would give her the time and healing to eliminate the last of the venom coursing through her veins. It wasn’t enough to kill her (she told herself). They couldn’t waste any more time retrieving Gaara from the Akatsuki. 

The sleep never came. Just as she felt her stiff muscles finally relax, her arm jerked up, pulling her torso with it. 

Sakura forced down the panic that swelled in her breast. Muscle spasms, she lied to herself. It will die down. 

Her body ignored her thoughts, pulling her out of the bed. Sakura climbed out of the window of her room, taking steady, confident steps across the rooftops of Sunagakure. The footsteps of someone who knew the terrain, who had grown up here playing on the roofs of these very same buildings. She could feel the force of chakra around her joints, at the mercy of some hidden puppet master. Even so, the movements alerted her to just how much damage the poison had done to her. Even a trace dose had her muscles aching at the effort of her climb. 

Finally, her seemingly endless march stopped on the rooftop of the tallest building in the village. Here the wind whipped her hair into a torrent, but there was none of the oppressive sand of the village down below. Up here, she was alone. For a moment she wondered if her puppet master would make her jump to her death far below. She closed her eyes and could feel the crush of her bones, the splitting of her skin. The thought didn’t worry her the way it should. 

She hoped that was a sign she was catching up to what a Shinobi should be. That she was catching up with Naruto and….

Sakura’s breath caught in her throat at the thought of Sasuke. Was he connected to this? Was he the one behind Gaara’s abduction? 

“So, this is the one who found a cure for my poison.” The voice was soft as silk in Sakura’s ear. She flinched. For all that she was wrapped in a web of chakra, she hadn’t felt anyone else here on the rooftop with her. She willed herself not to shiver against the wind and sudden terror that lurched within her. This was the person who had nearly killed Kankuro, who had abducted Gaara.   
A hand brushed her jawline, pulling her hair behind her ears. “No one should have been able to craft such an antidote, especially not a girl from…Konoha?” His voice—because it was certainly a male voice—tilted in wonder. “But it cost you, didn’t you? I can feel my work coursing through your veins.” 

She willed her muscles to move, to do anything to strike against her mysterious captor. None of that strength she had mastered with Tsunade came forth, and she stood still and vulnerable like any ordinary girl. 

“Do you have a name, little medic?” Sakura knew better than to reply. At her silence, the voice purred again, “Do you have a voice, little medic?” 

She couldn’t move against the strings of chakra that controlled her, but she could speak. As a shinobi of Konoha, she would never give an enemy ninja information.   
But maybe she could talk her way out of this. 

“If you were such an excellent poisoner,” she replied, her voice slightly halting, “you should kill your victims faster.” The hand at her jawline stiffened, no longer playing with the ends of her hair. 

“And why would I do something like that.” The voice was still smooth, but there was a hint of an edge, a knife hidden in silk. 

“Did you want to show off?” Sakura asked, her voice airy and light. It sounded like it belonged to another girl in an entirely different world. “Because all you gave me was an opportunity to undo all your work.” 

“Undo this,” her captor hissed, and she felt a loop of chakra thread tighten around her throat. She gasped, but no air filled her lungs. This time, panic bloomed at her temples, and she stiffened against the chakra threads. If they weren’t there to hold her up, she would collapse. Her vision darkened at the edge, a dark oblivion threatening to overtake her. “That poison will kill you eventually,” he said as she choked. “It may take longer than three days, but eventually it will get to you.” 

Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, the threads around her throat released. Deep, shuttering gasps filled her lungs. Her puppet master must have released her, because this time Sakura did fall to her knees. 

“Toying..with…me,” she said, trying to chuckle between gasps for air. “If you actually cared about results you’d just do it now.” She tried not to take on the full meaning of his words. That no matter what she did, eventually the poison would kill her. The price, she supposed, for saving another life. 

“Who said anything about results.” Her captor kneeled next to her, taking her chin in his hand so she could look up at him. “Maybe all I care about is watching this drama play out.”   
Even in the dark it was clear he was unmistakably handsome. She could just make out the fiery red of his hair in the dim moonlight. He wore the black and red cloak of the Akatsuki. 

She was in trouble. She knew it in her bones, the way a mouse knows death when it sees a snake. And with that knowledge, something other than fear licked at her spirit. 

A thrill.

He studied her face, drinking her in for a long moment before he spoke. “You are wasted in Konoha. I could immortalize you.” He threw his weight behind the word ‘immortalize’, like it was more than an offer.

It was a threat.

“What would I want with immortality?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “Offer me something else. Offer me a true antidote.” 

The man smirked. He looked young, only a few years older than she was, but there was something to his eyes. Their gaze was too focused, too knowing, to be as young as they appeared.   
He brushed his hand below her chin, his thumb running a light circle just below her ear. “Bold,” he teased. His hand was cold and firm like some kind of extremely nimble prosthetic. The part of her that was fresh from medical training wanted to examine it, to investigate the limb. But that was a distant desire, barely audible in the rush of a different kind of want. 

Her cheeks burned with shame, as she stared up at him, at his lips. She had never kissed anyone before, not even Sasuke (despite some girlish attempts two years ago). Never before had she felt this burning curiosity, this desperate urge to experiment. If she was going to die, why not let herself play with something other than good behavior?  
Isn’t that what drew you to Sasuke in the first place? The voice inside was wry and knowing, and sounded suspiciously like Sasuke himself. 

He captured Gaara, she screamed silently at herself, trying to convince herself to react normally, to struggle in some way. To do anything but stare longingly at the enemy. At her murderer. 

She felt the pull of a thread of Chakra around her limbs, as she stood up in tight, utilitarian movements. Slowly, she dropped her hands to her side, as if standing at attention. Waiting for her next set of commands. 

“I could make you do anything right now,” he said, a trace of wonderous satisfaction in his voice. “I could make you jump off this building. I could make you slit your own throat. But still…you wish to bargain with me. You still think you have any pull here.”

As he spoke, Sakura moved her chakra slowly right to the points where the strings of Chakra lopped around her wrists and waist. 

Tsunade had taught her how to channel her chakra to produce tremendous strength, but now she used that control to push against the threads. She sent a pulse up one of them, straight into her captor’s fingers. (It felt so strange to call him that, for all that he controlled her movements).

He responded, jerking his hand slightly, pulling her wrist along with his movement. But, for a moment, Sakura could feel his hold on her weaken. She smiled wryly.

“Interesting,” the man purred, stepping close to her, circling her like some kind of predator. “I’ve never met a puppet who tried to take control.”

“I’m no puppet,” Sakura said, her tone more confident than she felt. To prove it, she sent another bolt of chakra up the strings that held her in place. Just for a moment, she managed to feel them in her hands. But a moment was enough. She grabbed them, pulling the puppet master towards her. 

Their faces were inches apart, their eyes completely level. They were at an impasse. She could feel his chakra struggling for control against the strings, just as she sent her own power up them.   
Slowly, Sakura lifted her hands, and brushed a finger along the man’s cheek. 

It was firm, like wood. Like…a puppet. 

She had seen many thing since joining Team 7, things that any other girl would find shocking. But this, was something else entirely. If she removed her gloves, would she feel the whorls of wood beneath her fingers? 

That rush of thrill pulsed through her again, dangerous and heady. She traced her fingers along his jaw, his whole chin in her hands. 

“If I channeled my chakra just so,” she said, bringing up a swell of power to her fingertips, “I could snap your neck like so much firewood. Would you even feel it?”

The wooden man grinned, and she searched and searched for the sign of a seam in his face. His expression was fully human—as if muscle shifted beneath a thin veneer of wood. 

“Maybe I would let you,” he said. His strings were still around her fingers, and for a moment Sakura wondered if he was controlling her. If he was controlling more than just her movements. 

Genjutsu? She idly asked herself, as she indulged her whims, tracing a finger along the man’s lower lip. It was soft, and pliable beneath her touch.

Testing her control, Sakura pulled her own chakra down the strings that wound around her fingers so tightly. The man’s hand rose to meet her in response. 

“What did I say about making me the antidote?” Sakura asked, standing on the edge of that precipice of danger. 

The man lowered his face, until his lips were right next to her ear. “Perhaps it would be worth letting this play out a little longer,” he whispered. She expected to feel the heat of breath against her skin, but instead…nothing. Before she could respond, he took a nipping bite at her earlobe, the scrape of his teeth sending shivers up the base of spine. Then his mouth went lower, right at the spot where her neck met her shoulder right in the flesh of her trapezius. His teeth sunk sharp into the flesh, drawing blood. She cried out at the sensation, the pain mixing with immediate relief in her muscles. 

The antidote, she realized. 

Then his hold released on her entirely. “I’ll see you on the battlefield, little medic” he said, before he stepped off of the rooftop and into the darkness of the night.

Sakura did not do him the dignity of trying to chase after him. Instead, she stood shivering in the chilly desert night, running a thoughtful finger over the bite mark, thinking of cursed seals and antivenom.


End file.
